I've never been as excited about an Election Day as I was this morning when I left my house at 7 o'clock and drove the couple of blocks to Glen Iris Elementary School. The moment I turned onto 11th Place South, I saw a long line of cars. At the corner of the school, I could see people milling around. Or, that's what I thought they were doing.

Joey KennedyThe line outside Glen Iris Elementary School at about 7:15 this morning. What a wonderful sight!

Instead, what I saw was the end of the line for voting. I've been voting since 1974, and my first presidential election was Ford-Carter in 1976. I've voted at Glen Iris for 10 years. Never have I seen so many people in line to cast a ballot for an election. Any election. Nothing even close.

I parked down the street (it was all that was available), walked over and got into line. Somebody said it'd be more than an hour before we got to vote. I was thrilled by that news. Within five minutes, the line had grown behind me. One person said voters started assembling at 5:30, an hour and a half before the polls opened. I took note of the demographics. Many, many young people. Some, in fact, were former or current students from my English classes at UAB. These kids wouldn't dare schedule an 8 a.m. class because they like to sleep in, but here they were, at 7:10 in the morning, waiting in a long line to cast a ballot -- many to cast their first ballot ever. Yeah, they were yawning, but they were voting.

Sure enough, it was about an hour before I got into the gymnasium, where the voting machines are. There were three lines: A-G, H-N and O-Z. My line was the longest all morning. I eventually made my way to the front, signed in, took my ballot and marked it. When I put it in the machine, at about 8:20, 177 people had voted on one machine and 184 people had voted on the other.

Yes, this is an historic election. But aren't all elections "historic"? Wouldn't it be great to see people this enthusiastic about voting in every election? Maybe it'll be that way from now on.
Tell us about your voting experience today. How long did it take? How did you feel? What did you see?